See the name Alan Silvestri and you know your ears are in for a good time. The American composer, who just celebrated his 75thbirthday, has given the world some incredible music over the years. He is one of the best at BIG themes, with his myriad blockbuster orchestral scores some of the most imaginative and exhilarating written for the screen.
But Silvestri isn’t a one-trick pony, he’s a versatile artist who has lent his craft to romantic comedy, sci-fi, horror/thrillers, family films and drama. His more intimate works are also some of his very best, a solo piano melody often carrying an entire moment.
The Berklee-trained composer had his sights on jazz, but Hollywood captured his attention. He cut his teeth on television, as so many great Hollywood composers did, with NBC’s popular highway-patrol series CHiPs bearing Silvestri’s music for a whopping 76 episodes from 1977-83.
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While had written for a handful of low budget films prior to CHiPs, his big cinematic break came in 1984 with Robert Zemeckis’s romantic comedy adventure Romancing the Stone, starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. That was the beginning of a 40-plus year collaboration with the director, a creative partnership that remains one of the greats, right up there with Bernard Herrmann & Alfred Hitchcock, John Williams & Steven Spielberg and Danny Elfman & Tim Burton.
The pair’s most recent film, Here, is an unusual and ambitious work; an intimate ‘drama across time’, it is a series of dramatic (largelt domestic) vignettes observed from a single, unmoving camera position. Silvestri’s relatively spare music is beautifully applied, with a timeless main theme for piano and strings.
But with over 40 years of film music under his belt, what should you start with? What might we consider his very best work (so far)? Here’s our top 11…
1 / Back to the Future Trilogy (1985-90)
Robert Zemecki’s time-travel trilogy simply has to be considered as one, given how intrinsically (and cleverly) connected the three films are. While Romancing the Stone brought the pair together and represented Silvestri’s ‘big break’, 1985’s Back to the Future allowed the composer to really show the world what he could do. For Universal, and producer Steven Spielberg, Silvestri represented a bit of a gamble; could this jazzy, synth-pop guy who composed CHiPs and Romancing the Stone really come up with the kind of blockbuster orchestral score the film seemingly demanded? The answer was yes.
That said, Silvestri’s first run at the score was a little darker than what we know now, and he was tasked with going back and giving it a little more bounce… the end result, performed by a massive orchestra of 89 players, includes one of the most familiar (and barnstorming) themes in cinema history.
1989’s Back to the Future: Part II saw the composer quite literally picking up where he left off, while 1990’s Part III gave Silvestri the chance to composer to tip his (cowboy) hat to Hollywood Westerns of old. That third score also sees the introduction of a sweet romantic theme for Doc Brown and Clara, perhaps helping make it the best score of the three? Controversial?
2 / Forrest Gump (1994)
Robert Zemeckis’s ambitious, sentimental drama won six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, for Tom Hanks. Hanks is the titular Gump, a man with an incredible story – one which sees him playing his own part in pivotal moments in American history, all while navigating his own colourful, sometimes challenging, life.
This all-American, decades-spanning tale inspired Silvestri to dig deep, the composer crafting a truly great work, not to mention some of his most beguiling themes. His main ‘Feather Theme’ has become a classic, but it’s one of several great melodies in the score which serve to beautifully underline childhood tales, love, loss and heroism. Solo piano, strings, choir, woodwinds, brass… it really is a musical box of chocolates.
3 / The Abyss (1989)
Visionary director James Cameron pushed the envelope (as ever) with this breathtaking sci-fi drama about a deep-sea diving team who encounter an otherworldly presence beneath the waves while searching for the wreck of a submarine. The production was intense, with the majority of the film shot on a submerged set, and the film includes an early instance of CGI special effects.
Cameron’s prior two films, The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986) had been scored by composers Brad Fiedel and James Horner, respectively, but he turned to Alan Silvestri for this third feature. Horner didn’t have a great experience on Aliens and the pair’s relationship was somewhat strained as a result, which probably explains why he didn’t take this on. Silvestri, however, was more than up to the challenge responding with a big-boned score for orchestra, synths and choir; it is filled with drama, tension and wonder in equal measure.
4 / The Mummy Returns (2001)
Stephen Sommers’s follow-up to 1999’s The Mummy upped the ante in all respects, not least of all the music. Legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith turned in a thrilling effort for the first outing (the better film of the two), but it was Silvestri who delivered The Mummy Returns.
Written for a massive ensemble, it’s one of the composer’s biggest scores and features a set of cracking themes; from the high-octane, high-spirited main adventure theme through Imhotep’s mightily powerful choral theme and a captivating thread to represent his great love, Anck-Su-Namun. The action set pieces are some of the composer’s most accomplished, with the track ‘My First Bus Ride’ a standout moment in the score.
5 / Cast Away (2000)
Robert Zemeckis’s captivating, emotional drama about a man who survives a plane crash only to be stranded (for years) on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is notable for its lack of music. For the most part Chuck Noland’s ordeal is made all the more visceral by sound effects, or indeed the silence that would come with such isolation. His eventual escape and rescue is made all the more emotional by Zemeckis’s trump card… Alan Silvestri.
We don’t hear a note of his score until Chuck’s hand-made raft finally clears the waves that have impeded his escape and he is at last free… or at least, off of the island. It’s a great pay off, and Silvestri’s lone theme accompanies Chuck on his journey back to real life. That journey includes pain and heartache, something which is underpinned by this integral musical line by Silvestri, which is itself so fragile to start with (on solo oboe), but strengthens, to bolster and give hope. It’s a short score, but it has a massive impact.
6 / The Quick and The Dead (1995)
Having teased us with his Western prowess in Back to the Future: Part III, Silvestri immediately followed with Young Guns II. That score had a more modern edge, though, with guitars, synths in the mix and so it wasn’t until Sam Raimi’s The Quick and The Dead that the composer was able to give us his first fully-fledged Western score.
Harkening back to music of the genre’s golden age, and mixing in more than a little of Ennio Morricone’s colourful spaghetti western style, Silvestri’s evocative music utilises strings, solo trumpet, acoustic guitar and percussion to great effect.
7 / Judge Dredd (1995)
This muscular effort took a little while to get off the ground, with Silvestri replacing composer Jerry Goldsmith (due to scheduling conflicts) who had himself already replaced British composer David Arnold. Not only that, Silvestri had to rethink a certain amount of his score, re-recording sections in Los Angeles, having already recorded his score in London. It is, though, a brash and breathtaking piece of work, Silvestri going at the comic book sci-fi extravaganza with all orchestral and percussive guns blazing.
8 / The Polar Express (2004)
This musical fantasy broke new ground with its use of motion capture animation allowing Tom Hanks to play a handful of characters both physically and vocally. It’s a visual feast and quite the technological feat, which director Robert Zemeckis would continue to explore with the likes of Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009).
Zemeckis of course turned to Silvestri for the music, and it gave the composer an opportunity to create some wonderfully celebratory Christmas music, including original songs (featuring lyrics by Glenn Ballard). They include ‘Believe’, ‘Spirit of the Season’, ‘Hot Chocolate’, ‘When Christmas Comes to Town’ and the titular ‘The Polar Express’.
Silvestri’s score is rife with musical riches, too, and has just the right amount of magic, sparkle and darkness.
9 / Father of the Bride (1991)
Comedy has loomed large in Alan Silvestri’s career, he’s added comedic colour and sweet sentiment to so many memorable movies over the years, from Overboard (1987) to Maid in Manhattan (2002). One of the best, though, has to be the late Charles Shyer’s early-’90s remake of Father of the Bride starring Steve Martin and Diane Keaton.
Silvestri was brought on board late in the day but delivered music that is totally en-pointe for a story about a father facing up to his once little girl flying the nest. The ‘Main Title’ music makes clever use of Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ (aka ‘Here Comes the Bride’) before bursting into one of Silvestri’s greatest themes. The wider score utilises large orchestral forces, but also a small band of electric bass, sax and keyboards. It’s a contemporary score, which is of its time for sure, but one that remains a bit of a classic thanks to its great melodies and heart-on-sleeve sentimentality.
10 / Romancing the Stone (1984)
You can’t really count down Alan Silvestri’s best film scores without including his first major effort. Romancing the Stone could have easily attracted a symphonic adventure score a la Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Zemeckis and Silvestri decided to give this romantic comedy adventure a decidedly contemporary score.
The composer’s pre-Back to the Future synth-pop sensibilities were put to good use, with keyboards, synthesizers and guitars looming large. Silvestri’s main romantic thread goes to the solo saxophone, while he conjures a dazzling soundscape for action, featuring synth percussion, sax and strings. It’s quite a heady mix and totally of its time, so it perhaps hasn’t aged as well as his more orchestral efforts. That said, his brilliantly rhythmic keys, percussion and sax led ‘End Titles’ music remains a classic and is the piece most people will remember. Kitsch, but cracking.
11 / Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Marvel pulled out the big guns for this early entry in their (still ongoing) Avengers cinematic cycle. When Silvestri dropped his main theme for ‘Cap’, it’s almost like audiences went, ‘ohhhh yeah, this is how film music is supposed to sound!’ The four Marvel movies prior to this were musically a mixed bag, with powerhouse scores by Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man) and John Debney (Iron Man 2) and less memorable turns from Craig Armstrong (The Incredible Hulk) and and Patrick Doyle (Thor).
With one triumphant theme, Silvestri managed to re-energise Marvel’s Cinematic Universe – at least musically, and it’s telling that the studio brought him back to score their tentpole releases Avengers Assemble, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
A big theme, large orchestral forces, great action set pieces. Captain America proved big-boned orchestral film music like this still had a place in Hollywood, and so did Alan Silvestri.
Honorable mentions…
It’s always difficult to narrow a career as varied as Alan Silvestri’s down. He has composed so many great scores, and some brilliant themes. Who can forget the rush of Flight of the Navigator (1986), the dastardly comedy of Death Becomes Her (1992), the Herrmannesque thrill of What Lies Beneath (2000), the wistful wonder of Practical Magic (1998) or mad-cap Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
